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penguin-commando — USS Nimitz
Published: 2012-05-28 22:30:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 1954; Favourites: 31; Downloads: 97
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USS Nimitz, CVN-68, first of her class and one of the largest warships in the world.I spent a good part of Saturday chasing a battleship, and a good part of this morning looking for an aircraft carrier. She's here to celebrate Memorial Day and the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge with us, and is apparently going to stay out in the middle of the bay until her departure. If you look closely you can see one of her F-18s, just aft of the island.
San Francisco, CA, 2012
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Comments: 13
Wonderful picture! I am currently stationed on an Aircraft Carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt. I have a few pictures on my profile of when I was assigned temporarily to the USS Carl Vinson! Carriers are fascinating ships!
I read through the comments on this picture and I'd like to help clarify a few things for those of you who may be curious 
The ship may also be anchored in the harbor because none of the piers in San Francisco I believe are large enough to moor this ship pierside. That's okay though because the Navy uses what we call "liberty boats." They are boats that pull up to the fantail of the ship and loads sailors aboard to be transported to shore to enjoy their well-earned liberty. Also, aircraft cannot be shot off in harbors such as this due to noise and jet pollution. Navy regulations states that you cannot even fire off the catapults until you are about 50miles off shore, unless its an absolute emergency during wartime.
On the flight deck, these sailors may not be necessarily searching for debris. What it appears to be is routine maintenance needed on the flight deck with all sorts of equipment up there. Those sailors appear to be standing at the forward end of Catapult #3 and could be inspecting its components. The debris check, also know as a "FOD walkdown" can easily be identified by hundreds of sailors at one time on the deck walking down the ENTIRE 3football field length deck for debris.
I hope this helps clear some things up!
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Awesome. If you look just above the white tug, it looks like they're walking the flight deck for debris.
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Out in the middle of the bay? Are they afraid some of the sailors are going to go UA?
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I assume it's either for security or so they can safely launch the planes (I have no idea if they actually did, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did a flyover for today's Giants-Diamondbacks game). The sailors are very much ashore, although there's a destroyer in port as well.
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No idea. Nothing about it in the news, although there isn't always. I wouldn't have heard them from my end of town.
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A beautiful piece of engineering if I ever saw one. hey, any chance you hear what happened to the Hornet? I haven't been able to find out what they did with that one.
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It's a museum over in Alameda - [link] One of these days I need to get over there and take some photos.
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I know it's a museum, went there twice as a kid, I just wasn't sure if it was still there. Alameda? So they did move it from Richmond.
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Yup, it's at Pier 3 in Alameda, south of the old Navy base. Richmond and Oakland both wanted it, but neither wanted to pay for upkeep, which is part of the Navy's deal for hosting it. The people in charge now seem like a good group, a lot of original crew members and people who really care what happens to her.
Incidentally, you can rent the Hornet for your party or event for a mere $25,000 (which includes the planes, but you still can't touch them).
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